But Muskegon Heights Academy coach Del Stewart, on the other hand, was upbeat and couldn’t help but smile after the game.

The loss was painful for him, but he was more proud of the way the Tigers battled, not for only for themselves, but for the community as a whole.

“This has been a wonderful, wonderful year for us. ... I know they’re feeling hurt, but this was a little more than a basketball game for us because of all the things that’s gone on in our city and school district the last couple of years,” he said. “The championship they did win today was bring hope to despair in terms of how people felt about the school, the district, the city and they were the shining bright spot. They’ve gone beyond measure what a state title could have done. So they’re my champions.”

It’s already been documented how the Tigers lost two starters just before the season with charges in a robbery. At the point, the Tigers were probably considered a longshot to make it this far with all the upheaval.

But for those that remained, not only this year but before that when the Heights district closed in the spring of 2012 and reopened that fall as a public charter school, this was the reward.

“I’m sad that we lost, but we played hard. We did it for our community and our team and for two brothers that weren’t here with us,” Heights senior Eddie Tornes said. “It means a lot. Everybody thought we weren’t going to be nothing. They thought the school was going to get shut down. We brought our team here to win state, but we came up short. But we brought the community back together and the school.”

That’s a lot of weight to put on one team, let alone the shoulders of teenagers.

Unfortunately, this was not Heights basketball at its best. The Tigers were off the mark in their shooting and Pewamo-Westphalia proved to be the better team.

But Heights proved something of its own with its run to the Breslin.

And that’s why Stewart could smile.

He was looking at the big picture and soaking it all in.

“I’ve been at a peace the whole tournament. I can’t explain it, but I wanted to win and I gave my best to win, but I guess I couldn’t ignore all the good things, either,” Stewart said. “Yes, we would love to win state, that would be an honor, but I think these guys won something a lot of those banners that we have in our gym don’t even represent.

“And I think I’m able to see that. When we come and go back to class and sit and talk, I want to make them see it because I think they’ll feel the same way, too.”

Mark Opfermann covers sports for MLive Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at mopferma@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.